


i need to feel (convince me it's real)

by orphan_account



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Torture, Is that a thing, M/M, Platonic Cuddling, just a lot of angsty cuddling really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-14 10:36:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4561317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's something about pitch-black darkness that gives a certain asshole the urge to touch her face rather excessively.</p><p>Of course, she's not complaining.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i need to feel (convince me it's real)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there. If you're not caught up, I recommend starting from the beginning of the series. And yes, it WAS just a series, at one point, I swear! I'm not crazy, I just like telling stories.  
> -  
> And an extra special hello there to all of you who're caught up! Thank you so much for all the get well wishes last time, I'm feeling much better! You're all just too sweet for me. I don't deserve you.
> 
> This chapter is a very simple one, and reminds me a bit more of some of the earlier installments. Easy fluff with a good sprinkling of angst. Just the way we like it, right? 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this installment and the special, closer-than-usual peek it gives you into the minds of our sweet little duo here. If you love it, let me know! If you hate it, also let me know! I can take it, I promise. 
> 
> <3 Enjoy!
> 
> Or don't, I can't tell you what to do.

Clarke blinked back tears as she watched the scene from afar. Jasper kneeled on the floor next to his bed, which was now occupied by Monty.

 _Oh_ , how the tables had turned.

-

The immediate reunion had been significantly less pleasant, with the shorter boy shoving a barely-conscious Jasper into the wall and screaming obscenities in a very un-Monty-like fashion. Jasper shoved him right back, but he had no strength, and Monty didn’t budge. There was a good amount of ear-shattering shouting of, _“You killed Maya! You killed all of those people!”_ and _“I’ve been taking care of your pathetic ass for months! Do you know how long you’ve been lying there? Four months, Jasper! Over four months! You haven’t gotten out of bed once, and I’ve been sitting here watching paint dry!”_

Which soon became, _“Do you know how many times you crapped yourself? How many times I had to deal with that **literal** shit?”_

Jasper was very quiet, then.

“And you _knew_ this whole time." Monty fumed, clenching his fists. "You only woke up to ask for some girl you had known for a few weeks while your best friend of _years_ was sitting beside you, waiting for you to get out of that god damn bed! You weren’t in some kind of _sadness-induced coma_ , Jas! You gave up on me! Don’t you think we _all_ want to just take a four month long nap while someone waits on our eternally unconscious ass? But we don’t get to do that, Jasper!" His voice dropped to a whisper as the color drained from their faces. " _We don’t get to do that_.”

Jasper blinked, and Monty scrubbed at his exhausted eyes, before he collapsed.

-

So here they were, the five of them that were awake, at least, exchanging uncomfortable glances across the room.

Jasper had actually attempted to escape Medical when he spotted Murphy, who lit up like a Christmas tree when Bellamy blocked the door and said, “Don’t worry about him. He’s cool now.”

Jasper nodded slowly, and Murphy attempted a smile, but it came out very shark-like and a bit scary, so Clarke coughed to get the lanky one’s attention on her instead.

And then she remembered.

“J-Ja-Jasper, please! I’m  s-sorry!” She stuttered, backing up into the cabinets as he recognized her and began heading towards her on wobbly legs, with a dark look in his eyes.

Murphy hadn’t even extended a leg when someone stopped him.

“I know that look. She doesn’t need your protection- Clarke could kick his ass. Whatever muscle he has is probably untrained mush right now.”

“As opposed to his usual trained mush?” Murphy whispered, and Bellamy gave him a shove. They turned their attentions to the scene before them, when the shorter boy’s eyes widened to the size of lighthouse bunker pool balls.

Jasper had, instead of throwing another awkward, weak punch, enveloped Clarke into a hug.

“Well, there’s a surprise.” Bellamy muttered, with a funny look of surprise further decorating his freckled face. Murphy nodded slowly in agreement.

“I’m sorry, Clarke.” His voice was scratchy from very little use, and Clarke made note that his breath was sour and awful. He looked like shit, and smelled like it, too.

 “N-no."  Clarke shook her head frantically. " _I’m_ sorry, Jasper. I’m- I’m so _sorry_.”

“No, it’s- it’s okay. Monty made me realize some stuff. Other people are going through things too. There’s a lot of pressure on you, and I know you- you have to make the hard choices.” 

Murphy sent a pointed look at Bellamy, remembering so long ago when he bragged about using those words against Clarke- claiming that she couldn’t do exactly that. Bellamy clenched his fists, but the younger boy just grinned. He was now, officially, _Clarke-Approved._ Curly Fry wouldn’t lay a hand on him.

A get out of jail free card, it was.

“I’m sorry I left.” Clarke muttered, eyeing the admittedly very uninteresting floor.

Murphy’s stomach turned, but he comforted himself with the thought that she was probably just apologizing, not regretting. Right?

“We all cope differently. You go on vacation, I take a good nap.”

“Same awful sense of humor.” Clarke observed with a smile to match Jasper’s weak one, stealing a glance at Bellamy, who was glaring angrily at the door.

“Bell?”

“ _What?”_ He snapped, and everyone turned to look at him, including an almost-forgotten Raven who had been unusually quiet, fiddling with a broken stethoscope in the farthest corner of the room.

“Everything alright?”

“Just _peachy._ ”

“Don’t be an ass. What’s your deal?”

“Oh, _nothing_. Just wondering when I should take _my_ four months off.” He grumbled, shoving the door to Medical open with a huff and disappearing down the now-dark hall.

The door slammed alarmingly loudly behind him.

“Well, shit.”

Murphy looked at Monty, who was now sitting up in the bed with tousled hair and a frown on his soft-featured face.

He stifled a smile. Not funny.

-

The thunder clapped loudly again, and Clarke’s sigh was audible in the dark.

Murphy rolled his eyes.

She sighed again.

“God dammit, Clarke, what do you want?”

 _“Nothing.”_ She muttered, followed by another breathy exhale.

Murphy groaned, kicking the sheets and blankets off of him and shuffling blindly through the dark to the other side of the room. He climbed into the slightly-bigger cot Clarke had finally received, handed over so kindly from the old man who passed away in his sleep, in said cot, the week before they’d arrived. Murphy was disgusted to lie down in it, but Clarke insisted he was just being a “pissbaby”.

She hummed happily, satisfied as she curled into his side and traced the stitches on a patch in his shirt.

“Was this it? Really?” He whined, and the lightning flashing through the small window confirmed for him that the Earth agreed she was being obnoxious.

“I wanted to talk, too!” She huffed, and he turned his head away from her on the burgundy-colored pillow. “ _I_ wanted to sleep.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“Yeah.” He breathed, and Clarke dropped her forehead to his chest dramatically.

“What am I gonna do about Bellamy?” She muttered, voice muffled by the fabric of his t-shirt.

“He’ll get over it.”

Clarke was sure he likely could’ve felt the exaggerated eye rolling that commenced. “Make some effort here.”

“Just- hell, I don’t know! Let him have it.”

“What?”

“Give him the four months as an option. You’ve got about a 3% chance he’ll actually lay down and not move for four months, or paddle off to a lighthouse bunker. He’s whining about something he doesn’t even want.”

“I don’t think that’s it. I think-“

“ _I_ think we can talk about this in the morning. We need to-“ An angry crash of thunder cut the exhausted voice off.

“-get some sleep.”

Clarke’s brain was going a million miles an hour. How would she sleep?

“How do you turn it off so easily?”

“Hakuna matata.”

“Don’t you _dare!_ I hated that movie.” Clarke sniffled, recalling the children’s film about the lions they watched in the bunker, the one that had _her_ sobbing and _Murphy_ singing.

“What do you mean? It was cool!”

“His _dad,_ Murphy!”

“Yeah, well, welcome Simba to the Kids of Dead Dads Club. We have angst. Go to sleep Clarke.”

-

Hours later, the peacefully repetitive sound of rain mixed with his compartment-mate’s steady breathing still failed to lull him to sleep. He had told Clarke to get some rest, because he knew he wouldn’t. He hadn’t gotten much since they’d arrived.

He remembers the cage. It was so dark. Always so dark.

Time passed by probing his own wounds in the blackness to make sure that he felt it, that he was still alive. It kept him primarily sane when he was in the cage within a cage. No windows, no daylight, no moonlight, none of their stupid candles or Ark flashlights, just darkness. The only thing he saw was when they dragged him to that godforsaken room with all the chains and the instruments and weapons. Angry, charcoal streaked faces, blood smeared and splattered on the walls- some new, some old- and-"

He gasped for air as the sound of lightning striking something outside reverberated in his ears, shaking him out of his hellish trance.

Murphy turned on his side shakily, beads of sweat moistening the back of his neck and his forehead, to see the dark outline of the figure next to him. He wanted to look at her.

It was dark. But he had to see her. He had to make sure that she was real.

He could wake up and this could all be gone. What if he had finally lost it? It would make sense. There was no reasonable answer to why he was lying next to a girl who could have anything and anyone she wanted- but chose him. Someone who loved him, wasn’t disgusted by his touch, wanted him close. It just didn’t make sense.

Maybe for someone else, but not for him.

That’s just now how it went for John Murphy, son of stars with the lights gone out and a burning comet that hit the ground too fast. He was born to die. His bones were steel and his skin was aflame. He wasn’t made for love.

With a feather-light touch, he traced the outline of her face, gliding across smooth skin that he already knew was pretty, the angles of her jaw, across her chin. He stifled a laugh when he flicked her earlobe, and her entire body twitched.

Murphy dragged a tormented fingertip ever-so slightly over her eyebrows, down the gentle slope of her nose. He hovered over her cupid’s bow, moving to touch her cheekbones instead. He prayed to whatever god who hated him so much that she wouldn’t wake up. They’d probably just ignore him, or do the opposite, as usual.

Ah, yes. Self pity. The perfect addition to any slumber party.

It was almost humorous, his hesitation to touch her lips. Like they were sacred things. Two grand little doors that never closed. She never stopped talking. Worse than him, these days.

Murphy thought it was kind of endearing, actually.

He quickly touched the back of his hand to her closed lips, and then recoiled as if she would burn him.

Soft and pretty, just like the rest of her, (but everyone knows you can't judge a book by it's cover). Behind them lied a risk. They could part with sweet whispers or split with puncturing venom, and there was something awe-inspiring about that.

For Murphy, it had always been one or the other. But he could get used to this. Something grey in his black and white world.

He watched her warily for a moment, and when she didn’t stir, he breathed out a sigh of relief.

Running his fingers softly over her long lashes and closed eyelids, he lied down, satisfied at last and pulling the tattered blanket down to cover their feet again.

He knew very well what her hair looked like, (how could he forget?) but just in case, he told himself as he reached over.

Just in case.

-

He fell asleep with a hand still tangled in a knotted-up spider web of gold, finally content.

If there had been light, he just might have seen her smiling the entire time.

Clarke pulled her knees to her chest happily, nuzzling up against his side as warmth radiated off of him like a little personal heater. She tucked her cold feet under his thighs, looking up at his face as lightning flashed.

One day, her inexplicable fondness of him would kill her. She supposed that wouldn't be the worst way to die.

Murphy was what she needed. A solid point in a world of blurred lines and too many colors.

He hated with scorching fire and loved with a melted heart. He showed nothing or he broke completely. He stood his ground or he didn’t care at all. When he was happy, he laughed and when he was angry, he shouted.

It was dark, it was light. It was wrong, it was right. It was here, it was there.

She untangled his hand from her bedhead, hugging his arm tight. The rain was beating down on the metal skin of a death-riddled skeleton like it wanted inside, in tune with Murphy's soft snoring. Clarke allowed her eyes to slip closed at last, lips quirking up into a tender smile when his chin touched her forehead.

It was here.

It was right here.


End file.
